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`\pi` Day 2014 Art Posters
On March 14th celebrate `\pi` Day. Hug `\pi`—find a way to do it.
For those who favour `\tau=2\pi` will have to postpone celebrations until July 26th. That's what you get for thinking that `\pi` is wrong. I sympathize with this position and have `\tau` day art too!
If you're not into details, you may opt to party on July 22nd, which is `\pi` approximation day (`\pi` ≈ 22/7). It's 20% more accurate that the official `\pi` day!
Finally, if you believe that `\pi = 3`, you should read why `\pi` is not equal to 3.
For the 2014 `\pi` day, two styles of posters are available: folded paths and frequency circles.
The folded paths show `\pi` on a path that maximizes adjacent prime digits and were created using a protein-folding algorithm.
The frequency circles colourfully depict the ratio of digits in groupings of 3 or 6. Oh, look, there's the Feynman Point!
the many paths of `pi`—how to fold numbers
This year's Pi Day art expands on the work from last year, which showed Pi as colored circles on a grid. For those of you who really liked this minimalist depiction of π , I've created something slightly more complicated, but still stylish: Pi digit frequency circles. These are pretty and easy to understand. If you like random distribution of colors (and circles), these are your thing.
But to take drawing Pi a step further, I've experimented with folding its digits into a path. The method used is the same kind used to simulate protein folding. Research into protein folding is very active — the 3-dimensional structure of proteins is necessary for their function. Understanding how structure is affected by changes to underlying sequence is necessary for identifying how things go wrong in a cell.
method — folding a number
I will be using the replica exchange Monte Carlo algorithm to create folded paths (download code).
The choice of mapping between digit (0-9) and state (polar, hydrophobic) is arbitrary. I have chosen to assign the prime digits (2, 3, 5, 7) as hydrophobic. Another way can be to use perfect squares (1, 2, 4, 9). I construct the path by assigning each digit to a path node. One can partition π into two (or more) digit groupings (31, 41, 59, 26, ...) as well.
folding 64 digits of π
E=-23, indicating 23 neighbouring pairs. A color scheme after the Bauhaus style will be used for the art, with a different scheme for white and black backgrounds.
The quality of the path will depend on how hard you look. Each time the folding simulation is run you run the chance of finding a better solution. For the 64 digits of
π
shown above, I ran the simulation 500 times and found over 200 paths with the same low energy. It's interesting to note that the path with E=-22 was found in <1 second and it took most of the computing time to find the next move.
Below I show 100 paths of 64-digits with E=-23, sorted by their aspect ratio.
E=-23 64-digit paths — there are many more paths with this energy. The paths are in increasing order of aspect ratio (width/height). First is 6x14 (0.429) and last is 8x9 (0.889).
(zoom)
Running the simulation for 64 digits is very practical — it takes only a few minutes. In a sectino below, I show you how to run your own simulation.
folding 768 digits of π — the Feynman Point
Let's fold more digits! How about 768 digits — all the way to "...999999". This is the famous The Feynman Point in π where we see the first set of six 9s in row. This happens surprisingly early — at digit 762. In this sequence there are 298 prime digits with the other 470 being composite.
E=-223 (width=38, height=52, r=0.73, cm=1, cmabs=13).
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I have chosen not to emphasize the start and end of the path — finding them is part of the fun (You are haven't fun, aren't you?). The end is easier to spot — the 6 9s stand out. Finding the start, on the other hand, is harder.
(d,n) points in π — sequences of repeating digits
The Feynman Point is a specific instance of repeating digits, which I call (d,n) points.
You can read more about these locations, where I have enumerated all such locations in the first 268 million digits of π .
Optimal paths of π up to Feynman Point
Below is a list of the 20 best paths that I've been able to find. They range from E=-223 to E=-219. I annotate each path with a few geometrical properties, such as width, height, area and so on. In some of the art these properties annotate the path (energy x×y r cm,cmabs).
# e - energy, as positive number # x,y - path width and height # r - aspect ratio = x/y # area - area (x*y) # cm - center of mass |(sum(x),sum(y))|/n and |(sum(|x|),sum(|y|))|/n # dend - distance between start and end of path 0 e 223 size 37 51 r 0.725 area 1887 cm 1.9 13.4 dend 24.4 1 e 222 size 36 44 r 0.818 area 1584 cm 17.3 18.8 dend 10.4 2 e 221 size 37 50 r 0.740 area 1850 cm 7.6 14.0 dend 16.3 3 e 221 size 70 36 r 1.944 area 2520 cm 1.0 17.3 dend 30.1 4 e 221 size 41 55 r 0.745 area 2255 cm 17.9 20.6 dend 29.5 5 e 221 size 50 49 r 1.020 area 2450 cm 20.8 22.1 dend 34.1 6 e 221 size 61 35 r 1.743 area 2135 cm 11.4 18.2 dend 15.0 7 e 221 size 53 45 r 1.178 area 2385 cm 14.7 18.1 dend 18.8 8 e 221 size 32 52 r 0.615 area 1664 cm 14.0 18.1 dend 33.8 9 e 220 size 46 70 r 0.657 area 3220 cm 26.6 27.8 dend 27.3 10 e 220 size 55 55 r 1.000 area 3025 cm 5.1 16.8 dend 15.0 11 e 220 size 58 34 r 1.706 area 1972 cm 9.3 14.6 dend 43.4 12 e 220 size 62 50 r 1.240 area 3100 cm 30.6 31.4 dend 33.4 13 e 220 size 41 45 r 0.911 area 1845 cm 15.4 17.6 dend 19.2 14 e 220 size 47 51 r 0.922 area 2397 cm 25.6 26.7 dend 16.0 15 e 220 size 38 52 r 0.731 area 1976 cm 13.1 15.9 dend 23.6 16 e 220 size 57 46 r 1.239 area 2622 cm 20.7 22.7 dend 51.7 17 e 220 size 43 57 r 0.754 area 2451 cm 21.3 23.3 dend 29.6 18 e 219 size 45 45 r 1.000 area 2025 cm 16.5 18.2 dend 33.1 19 e 219 size 51 46 r 1.109 area 2346 cm 16.0 19.2 dend 44.4
As you can see, the dimensions of the paths vary greatly. Low energy paths are not necessarily symmetrical. Paths with a small cm are balanced around their center. Paths with r≈1 are confined in a square boundary. Paths with small dend have their start and end points close to one another.
planet π — path lattice on a circle
The art would not be complete if we didn't somehow try to further force things into a circle! The path lattice is rectangular, but can be deformed into an ellipse or circle using the following transformation
` [(x'),(y')] = [(x sqrt(1-y^2/2)),(y sqrt(1-x^2/2)) ] `
Beyond Belief Campaign BRCA Art
Fuelled by philanthropy, findings into the workings of BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes have led to groundbreaking research and lifesaving innovations to care for families facing cancer.
This set of 100 one-of-a-kind prints explore the structure of these genes. Each artwork is unique — if you put them all together, you get the full sequence of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 proteins.
Propensity score weighting
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. —Mr. Spock (Star Trek II)
This month, we explore a related and powerful technique to address bias: propensity score weighting (PSW), which applies weights to each subject instead of matching (or discarding) them.
Kurz, C.F., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2025) Points of significance: Propensity score weighting. Nat. Methods 22:1–3.
Happy 2025 π Day—
TTCAGT: a sequence of digits
Celebrate π Day (March 14th) and sequence digits like its 1999. Let's call some peaks.
Crafting 10 Years of Statistics Explanations: Points of Significance
I don’t have good luck in the match points. —Rafael Nadal, Spanish tennis player
Points of Significance is an ongoing series of short articles about statistics in Nature Methods that started in 2013. Its aim is to provide clear explanations of essential concepts in statistics for a nonspecialist audience. The articles favor heuristic explanations and make extensive use of simulated examples and graphical explanations, while maintaining mathematical rigor.
Topics range from basic, but often misunderstood, such as uncertainty and P-values, to relatively advanced, but often neglected, such as the error-in-variables problem and the curse of dimensionality. More recent articles have focused on timely topics such as modeling of epidemics, machine learning, and neural networks.
In this article, we discuss the evolution of topics and details behind some of the story arcs, our approach to crafting statistical explanations and narratives, and our use of figures and numerical simulations as props for building understanding.
Altman, N. & Krzywinski, M. (2025) Crafting 10 Years of Statistics Explanations: Points of Significance. Annual Review of Statistics and Its Application 12:69–87.
Propensity score matching
I don’t have good luck in the match points. —Rafael Nadal, Spanish tennis player
In many experimental designs, we need to keep in mind the possibility of confounding variables, which may give rise to bias in the estimate of the treatment effect.
If the control and experimental groups aren't matched (or, roughly, similar enough), this bias can arise.
Sometimes this can be dealt with by randomizing, which on average can balance this effect out. When randomization is not possible, propensity score matching is an excellent strategy to match control and experimental groups.
Kurz, C.F., Krzywinski, M. & Altman, N. (2024) Points of significance: Propensity score matching. Nat. Methods 21:1770–1772.
Understanding p-values and significance
P-values combined with estimates of effect size are used to assess the importance of experimental results. However, their interpretation can be invalidated by selection bias when testing multiple hypotheses, fitting multiple models or even informally selecting results that seem interesting after observing the data.
We offer an introduction to principled uses of p-values (targeted at the non-specialist) and identify questionable practices to be avoided.
Altman, N. & Krzywinski, M. (2024) Understanding p-values and significance. Laboratory Animals 58:443–446.